Soul Forge
Soul Forge is one of the oldest and most popular persistent worlds on listed on GameSpy, having been active and blooming since June 2002. The server has an experienced and friendly staff and player base combined with a vast continent waiting to be explored by adventurers. Soul Forge is available 24/7, so is available whenever someone feels the urge to play, and friendly players, who are willing to chat or help someone get started, are likely to be found. For many players and staff, Soul Forge is much like a second home and an alternate reality. Soul Forge offers the opportunity to become a great and powerful adventurer, a wealthy capitalist, or a teller of tales who sits in the tavern with a hearty ale, plus countless more. Because at its heart Soul Forge is a persistent world created for every gaming type, everyone is welcome, and it is home to both serious roleplayers and skilled powergamers. Currently this world offers the gamer many things, of which a few are listed below: *A unique setting with an ancient and ever growing story, written and experienced by both DMs and players. As there are few limits to the human mind, so is the everyday storyline of Soul Forge. *A reasonable and steadily increasing level and wealth progression. Soul Forge offers a reasonable pace of experience and gold/equipment where level 40 characters cannot be built in a day, but only after weeks of playing. In addition, gold is not as abundant as on many other PWs but leads to making decisions instead of buying everything. *A modified CNR tradeskill system. For those players who wish to progress as capitalists and businessmen, the tradeskill system allows PCs to make gold by selling wares in the game to either PCs or NPCs. To allow for selling of wares to NPCs, the item pricing is designed so that a steady living can be made as a crafter without it being the ultimate source of gold. To make crafting more attractive, experience is awarded at a reasonable level for reaching the higher stages of a craft. *Although equipment can be bought from shops and made via tradeskills, the best equipment is not shop bought but acquired from vanquishing the greater evils of the Soul Forge. Travelers may come across one or the other very rare items. *An attentive staff that listens to player suggestions. The staff is happy to listen to players' suggestions as long as they are presented in a non-abusive manner. Many player suggestions have been implemented into Soul Forge. While they are only implemented if they will benefit the player base as a whole, suggestions are taken into account and discussed amongst the staff and other players. *Interesting and numerous magic items. There are few, if any, standard BioWare-created items on Soul Forge, as a lot of time has been devoted to making magic items that are not overpowering, yet give the players access to useful and needed equipment. There is also a custom item level restriction system that allows epic items that players can work toward, as well as items that attempt to make all classes enjoyable and useful to play. *Many different dungeons and terrains for combat. Soul Forge offers challenging dungeons for every level and type that have well-defined back stories and plots. Travel to lost elven cities, bandit lairs, the Underdark, and kingdoms on other planes. We also have epic dungeons for the truly powerful that take players to long forgotten ruins, ancient temples, vampire keeps, and into the bowels of the abyss itself. *A modified spell system that allows casters to be efficient past 20 and up until 40 by uncapping most spells and adjusting others. *Soul Forge offers many means of transport across the realm as permahaste is not an option here for balance reasons. For example, horses are available to carry PCs to their destination, wherever it may be, and there are portal stones that return adventurers to safe havens should things go bad or a party wishes to regroup. Further instruments of travel are available as well, such as coaches that link towns and boats that link islands. *Party play is greatly encouraged on Soul Forge as the usual reduction of experience point awards for being in a party has been eliminated. While parties are only possible across certain level ranges for anti-powerlevelling reasons, they will enable PCs to level from 1 to 40 in a few weeks. *Enjoyment is a priority. The admins are constantly available to help, not only in the game, but also on the server's forums. Players welcome those who are new and are likely to extensively instruct and help players who are getting started. Also, the server will reset every 4 hours to reduce any lag that should occur and area cleanup scripts are in place to eliminate junk that has been dropped. Between server resets, messages will be sent out to all players to warn of the upcoming reset and a PvP mini-game lasting at most 10 minutes will run for the so inclined. This is entirely optional; those that do not wish to participate do not have to. *All areas have been designed with great detail and care to produce detailed, rich, and picturesque places that drive characters onwards to adventures. To achieve this, several hak paks had to be used, but these are small enough to be downloaded by dial-up subscribers. *The housing system offers player housing to every player. Once a wealth of gold has been acquired, players can design a house and submit it to the builders to be added to the module for a small price of gold with a monthly rental fee. *Map pins have been made persistent so they stay on the map across resets. *Answers for player questions are provided on a regular basis through the SoulForge FAQ on the server's forum. In summary, Soul Forge offers medium magic, friendly and welcoming players and staff, quick tech support, openness to suggestions, constant improvements, balance for all playstyles, encouragement for party play, detailed design, portal stones, coaches, boats, riding horses, gold that is neither too scarce nor abundant, a slow/medium pace of leveling, persistent map pins, CNR tradeskills, player housing, and new player help / FAQ. The newest additions include *roleplayer of the month award, *customizing a character's wings, *improved summons for blackguards and shadowdancers, *improved animal companions for rangers and druids, and *customizing equipment to the fullest. The address for a direct connect to Soul Forge is soulforge.nwn1.net:5121, or alternatively 178.238.231.248:5121. A hak pak, obtainable from the server's home page, is required to connect. External link * Home page category:gameworlds